Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs

Hari, Johann (Get this book)
This is a frank, often brutal examination of the origins of the American war-on-drugs policy. Dividing his book neatly into five parts, each with its own subsections, Hari concisely lays out the history and long-term effects of the war on drugs with both depth and precision. He portrays everyone with empathy, from drug dealers to drug addicts, law enforcement personnel, and civilians caught in the middle of this war, which, along with the first-person narration, helps to keep the narrative engaging, albeit often depressing. Hari ends the book by examining alternate ways drug use and drug addiction are being dealt with, the new and growing science that shows that everything we thought we knew about drugs may be wrong, and how there is hope for a new understanding of drug use in the future. --Booklist